Sweden proposes a ban on the use of credit cards for gambling
By Ramona Depares
For quite a while, Sweden’s top online casinos have been worried about the possibility of a comprehensive credit card ban for gambling. It would now appear that these worries could very well become reality, as the Minister of Finance has proposed measures that would prohibit gambling sites, including top online casinos, from offering credit cards as a payment option.
Known for placing a priority on responsible gambling, the Swedish Gambling Act already banned licensed online casinos from offering credit to gamblers. Moreover, the same Act already forbids operators from encouraging players to borrow, although so far this has never been interpreted to mean that they can’t offer credit card options for payment.
However, should the new proposal be made law, things are set to change with a stricter approach that won’t leave any room for interpretation. The idea, the Swedish government said, was to eliminate all possibilities of players using credit to gamble, including via regular credit cards.
In a statement, Swedish Minister of Financial Markets, Niklas Wykman, stated: “Gambling for money on credit can lead to great financial difficulties. Therefore, we are now stopping that possibility. It is not reasonable for gambling companies or gambling agents to contribute to individuals taking such large risks.”
For many, this did not come as a surprise as it aligns with Wykman’s approach to gambling policy as stated on the Swedish government’s website: “Gambling policy is about preventing gambling addiction and creating a sound and secure gambling market in which social protection interests are safeguarded.”
Wykman’s proposal found the full support of the Spelinspektionen, the Swedish gambling regulator, which had already called for a similar ban in November 2023. The call had come as a reaction to a government study on the risks of lending and over-indebtedness.
The call, however, hadn’t gained much traction and an investigation concluded that the reasons for not introducing the full ban far outweighed the reasons for going ahead. Now, the Spelinspektionen welcomed this latest development in a press statement, stating that “Gambling companies with a Swedish license are subject to a duty of care which means that they must discourage excessive gambling”.
The press release issued by the Ministry of Finance provides clearer detail, explaining that under the new ban “it shall not be permitted for these gambling companies and gambling agents to receive payments financed with a credit – regardless of how and when the credit has been provided. It includes, among other things, that bets for money may not be paid with credit cards”.
If the Swedish government decides to go ahead with the new law, the constitutional amendments will enter into force on September 1, 2024, with the credit card ban becoming enforceable at all online casinos operating under a Spelinspektionen license as of April 1, 2025.
The proposal met with harsh criticism
As was to be expected, the proposal has attracted widespread criticism both from the industry and from trade associations. Although the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority had backed the initial calls for the ban made in 2023, calling for “stricter regulation of the credit prohibition in the Gambling Act”, it was pretty much the only official body to stand with the Spelinspekionen and the Ministry of Finance.
Other organizations were not as kind in their reactions, with the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling (Branschföreningen för Onlinespel, BOS) slamming the proposals in no uncertain manner via an official press release. In it, BOS accused the Swedish government of “going against its own state investigation into the matter” after a 2023 inquiry decided to continue allowing credit cards for gambling.
The move, BOS stated, was akin to offering a competitive advantage to unlicensed online casinos thus risking that it grows even stronger than its current 41% market share. BOS secretary general Gustaf Hoffstedt continued:
“It is sad that the government does not listen to its own expertise and instead proposes a ban on credit cards when gambling, contrary to what the government investigation has concluded. Interestingly, the government does not propose a corresponding credit card ban for the purchase of alcoholic beverages, which in Sweden is only offered by a retail monopoly owned and operated by the government itself.”
Meantime, murmurs of dissatisfaction have also been recorded among some of the top online casinos in Sweden, as operators agree with Hoffstedt that the ban will leave the door right open for unlicensed platforms to ride roughshod over legit sites.
Other countries that have banned credit cards for gambling
Controversial as the Swedish credit card ban is, this is certainly not the first time that players in a country have had to face such a development. It all started back in 2010 in Norway when the government passed a law to stop banks from accepting credit card payments from both land-based and online casinos. Then, in 2019, Belgium also decided to ban all credit card deposits for gambling.
However, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) can be said to have made the biggest noise when it officially banned all credit card gambling in April 2020. Since then, all UK-licensed online casinos have removed all credit card options from their system, only accepting debit bank cards.
The UKGC actually went one step further, specifically putting the onus on operators to ensure that any casino payment options made using e-wallets like Paypal, ApplePay, Neteller or Skrill are not funded with a player’s credit card. Both the UKGC and the National Centre for Social Research hailed the ban as a success. A UKGC report noted that “support from consumers was largely positive”.
Germany followed the UK ban, with operators forced to remove the option from their payments page and German banks legally obliged to refuse payments to and from online casinos that are requested via credit cards. And in Ireland, sportsbook operators voluntarily agreed to an industry-wide ban on credit cards in 2021.
The most recent country to join the ranks is Australia, where the government banned the use of all credit cards for gambling in December 2023.
It’s too early to conclude whether this proposal will gather traction and succeed where the Spelinspektionen failed. With the proposed ban currently in consultation, it is expected that a definitive conclusion will be reached by September 2024, by which time we’ll know whether the law is going to go through.
Whatever the outcome, there is no doubt that the Swedish gambling scene is undergoing a significant evolution, as the regulator and other government bodies continue to push for more stringent controls.
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